I don’t know if this is how it works for other people but the less I think about a problem, the faster I can find a solution for it.  It’s like anytime I try to figure out a problem through sheer will and forceful brain flexing, I’m left beaten and frustrated.  But take a game break, surf the web or complete forget about the problem for a few days and the next time I approach the problem, it’s like it never was one.  Further evidence that procrastination is the method of creative geniuses?

Anyway, I made a number of breakthroughs during the past few weeks in my quest for the most frickin amazing website on the planet.  First off, I’m definitely getting more comfortable with ajax, as you can see from the registration validation that I’ve set up.  Never in my life did I think I’d be able to create a username and email check.  That was a great moment…(wipes away a tear). Thanks to yensdesign.com, Roshan’s Blog and the professor.

Another pain in the ass was pagination.  I tried a number of techniques found here, here and a few others.  But either I couldn’t get it working or simply didn’t like the implementation.  Finally decided on a pretty simple version of the existing pagination code that I was using.  One thing I’d like to add is the ability to dynamically hide page links when there are too many…hoping that will come to me eventually.

I’m finally making some headway in using mod-rewrite to take control of my urls.  All of the user profile pages can now be access through qrisper.com/username/.  Shout out to Stack Overflow, one frickin great resource.  Planning to use mod-rewrite across all of qrisper.com.  One concern is what kind of performance hit I’m taking using htaccess.  Will need to move that over to the Apache config file eventually.

In addition, a few other minor modifications:

• sanitized 99% of qrisper.com… there’s one or two pages that still need a thorough scrubbing but hoping to have eliminated most of the possibility for any funny business
• users can now change their previously submitted answers
• a few design/nav tweaks (tweet answer link, what’s your answer link, updates to answers/skipped/index pages

And lastly, I was using this solution to manage thumbnail images from the always helpful folks at nettuts.  But at point, I broke it.  Plus, I wasn’t complete satisfied with the quality of the thumbnails.  So now I’m using the ridiculously awesome Smart Image Resizer by Joe Lencioni.

That was a meaty update.  Next up, a city filter for local questions on qrisper.com!

Update: Ha, speaking of which…In Defense of Distraction.

Sort of hit a developer’s wall, if such a thing exists.  I’m at a point where I can visualize what I want to code but can’t yet execute consistently.

Just read this post about why programmers don’t like to code and I feel the same way.  I get amped anytime I solve something with my own code.  But more often than not, I prefer searching for pre-existing solutions and simply plugging that sucker in.  I’m not coding for the sake of coding.  I’m trying to do something that requires code…a means to an end blah blah blah.

Anyway, here are few updates:

• added an error message for when a login goes wrong (yeah didn’t have one yet)
• users can now login with either a username or their email address
• added validation to the registration form; currently working on a username and email check
• did some SEO work, adding/modifying meta tags and fixing and reloading my xml sitemap
• in the suggest question page, you can now track your suggested questions; will eventually add your friends’ suggested questions as well
• the follow/remove functionality in profile pages are now working as they should; had been having problems with those but problem solved
• replaced the Digg/Buzz links with the addthis button – that’s a great little widget

A couple of biggies.  qrisper eats is now complete.  The site is identical to qrisper except all questions are from the eats categories.  I plan to do the same for other categories as their question pool gets bigger.  Also, I definitely think I have some SEO juice going on because qrisper’s already getting hits through Google searches, with qrisper showing up in the first or second search results pages.  Pretty surprising…

Anyway, there’s a ton of things I still want to do…just have to chip away at it I guess.  I’m also looking into Elance.com and Collabfinder.com.  Gonna need some help sooner or later.

For the none of you that frequent this blog, I’m sure you’ve noticed the change to the design.  For some reason, Wordpress themes felt so foreign to me.  But I wasn’t feeling the one I had before.  So I decided to take a crack at building a theme that incorporated the look of qrisper.  Wasn’t too bad…just had to navigate through all of the Wordpress PHP.      Actually learned a couple of things about managing browser discrepancies by looking at how theme developers dealt with them.

Which brings me to IE7.  At some point, qrisper got totally broken on IE7.  Ended up using the * hack in my CSS files, which now won’t validate.  To that I say fuggem.  Rules are meant to be broken.

The development theme for the past week was spring cleaning.  I consolidated a number of pages, modularized my CSS (as much as I could), cleaned up and moved all my js files to the footer and tidied up all of my control/view files after the redesign.  qrisper just feels lighter to me now, although there wasn’t any noticeable improvement in performance.

A couple of new/updated pages:

• created a personalized 404 page…heard it’s a good thing to have
• redid the splash page screenshots after the layout redesign…but need to redo them yet again
• added Disqus comments to all answer pages.  I had comments in the pre-alpha version of qrisper but took them out because of poor site.  Still kinda slow but the ability to sign in via Facebook Connect was irresistable.  Too bad that ain’t working…can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong
• Tweaked my existing autocomplete functionality…basically made it look nicer.  Only thing missing now is to add keyboard navigation functionality.

Next up on my list is security and validation.  I’m already using sanitize classes to filter out all user input but I want to add additional layers of security.  Also want to incorporate jquery into the validation process so that users have a clear sense of what’s going on.

Woo!  Two major accomplishments, both for qrisper and myself.

I finally figured out how to post qrisper answers to Twitter.  Users now have the option to auto-post all of their qrisper answers onto Twitter.  A small step for some but a giant leap for Jungkind.

Also finally figured out the correct MySQL query that displays on your question page your submitted answers plus the answers that your followees submitted.  The key piece that I was missing…parentheses.  Blerg.  Think I need to more schooling on PHP and MySQL.

My next intended major tasks were going to be a qrisper app on Facebook and learning how to use Amazon Web Services.  However, I decided that I had nothing compelling to offer Facebook at the moment.  So that has been pushed back.  As for AWS, I’ve discovered that implementing qrisper in the cloud might be a tad complex for me at the moment.  Going to need a systems engineer to manage that for me.

Here are some additional updates:

• minor tweaks to the follow/do not follow functionality
• added a list of newly suggested questions into the suggest question page (for registered users)
• updated my php version of the sitemap but removed that page althogether and am now using an xml version
• with all of recent redesigns to the current layout, I had neglected the admin pages.  Those pages are now macking the new look
• added a list view for skipped questions (in addition to the current top ten view)

I also fixed the category navigation in the splash page so that clicking on a specific category will keep you in that category question pool.

I had been getting some comments that the color scheme in qrisper was a bit noisy.  It might simply be personal taste (I like loud, bright colors) but I decided to tone it down a notch.  The one thing I cannot back down from is the yellow background.  I’ve tried different colors but so far haven’t been able to find one that maintains the qrisper vibe.  Think the new creamier yellow looks pretty good.

Sheesh, it’s already been almost three weeks since my last post.  Good thing no one reads this thing.

Anyway, a slew of updates for qrisper.com.

• totally redesigned the layout…well, not really.  Just got rid of the image tabs and combined the center columns.  I spent so much time making those tabs though…oh well.  I’ve been meaning to get rid of them…just couldn’t get myself to do it.  I think the site looks cleaner and more open.
• also changed the content, design and navigation of the logged in pages.  The question page contains one question and a bunch of your recently answered questions.  Still trying to add the answers of the people you follow.  I’m basically ripping off Twitter.  But hey, whatever works right?
• added a feedback tab to give it more of a presence.  Hopefully, users will hear the feedback tab beckoning for feedback and do its bidding.
• fixed the user thumbnail uploader.  So you can upload pictures of yourselves into qrisper.  Hooray!  Problem was that I was trying to insert the image path into a mySQL table when I should have been updating the table.  Duh.
• built out the account settings page.  Now you can update your info, password and profile pic.  Still working on the functionality that will autopost your answers to Twitter.
• built out the find and follow people page.
• added the timestamp of when you answered the question.  That was one major pain in the ass.  Could not for the life of me figure out the proper syntax for the mySQL query.
• last but not least, I create profile pages for each user.  Whereas before you could only see your own activity, you can now peruse other users’ answers and questions.  Much easier than I had expected.

With all of that accomplished, I felt pretty good for like a minute.  But there’s still so much that I need to do.  I want to integrate Facebook Connect and create a FB page for qrisper.  Need to get the Twitter post working.  Also need to add a few more navigational features and content.  But I finally feel like I’m getting close to an official launch.  Been thinking long and hard about how to approach that.  Just gotta do it I guess.